"Do you have any idea what that tablecloth cost?" Marguerite's voice cut across the table, sharp and immediate, before Daniel could fully register what was happening. She moved quickly, closing the distance to where Lily sat frozen with her apology still hanging unanswered in the air.
"Marguerite—" Daniel started, already rising from his own chair, but he was a half-second too slow.
Her hand connected across Lily's cheek before Daniel could reach them, the sound cracking sharply through the previously murmuring dinner table. The room went utterly silent, twenty-some guests frozen mid-conversation, several visibly recoiling at what they'd just witnessed.
Lily's small hand flew to her cheek, a bright red mark already blooming across her skin, her wide eyes filling instantly with fresh, shocked tears. She didn't cry out. She simply sat there, stunned, absorbing a pain that seemed to surprise her more deeply than the physical sting itself.
Daniel reached his daughter in two strides, dropping to a crouch beside her chair, his own composure cracking with a fury he rarely allowed himself to feel in front of family. "What is wrong with you?" he said to Marguerite, his voice low and dangerous. "She's seven years old. It was an accident."
Marguerite, apparently unbothered by the horrified silence spreading through the rest of the table, simply straightened her sleeve. "Children need to learn consequences, Daniel. You coddle her far too much."